The Metal Crypt - Zero Nine Interview

Interviews Zero Nine

Interview with vocalist Kepa Salmirinne
Interview conducted by Luxi Lahtinen

Date online: August 20, 2025

Live pictures by PP Marila

Few names resonate as deeply in the history of Finnish heavy rock as Zero Nine. Emerging from the remote town of Kuusamo in the early 1980s, the band carved out a place in the heart of Finland's metal scene long before the genre gained mainstream traction in the country. Fronted by the charismatic and ever-passionate Kepa Salminen, Zero Nine became a trailblazer—not just for their melodic, riff-driven rock anthems, but for proving that, even from the northernmost reaches of Finland, world-class heavy rock could thrive.

Founded in 1980, Zero Nine quickly gained attention with albums like Blank Verse and Intrigue, the latter produced in part by Ian Gillan of Deep Purple fame—marking a rare international collaboration for a Finnish band at the time. Their blend of hard-hitting rock, clean vocals, and infectious hooks drew comparisons to both classic British heavy metal and American stadium rock. They shared stages with the likes of Motörhead, Uriah Heep, and Iron Maiden, placing Kuusamo squarely on the rock map.

After a string of albums through the '80s and early '90s, Zero Nine went through quieter years but never disappeared entirely. In recent years, they've experienced a well-earned revival, performing at festivals playing their classic material for the crowds, proving the fire that started in the snowy north still burns strong.

Now, as Zero Nine continues their journey more than four decades after their inception, I sat down at one hotel lobby in Joensuu, Finland, with Kepa Salminen, the unmistakable voice of the band, to talk about their origins, milestones, struggles, and what keeps the band going today.

Before we get into the topic of Zero Nine's current state, it would be interesting to know how Zero Nine got its start. Where did it all begin?

Kepa: Well, our guitarist Timo Käsmä, drummer Mikko "Borno" Korpela and bassist Elmo Harju (until 2004) wanted to start making some music that was a little different from what they had played before. They played stuff like The Ramones, Hurriganes and other punk bands. When they had rehearsed long enough, they looked for a vocalist to complete the lineup and eventually they found me and I joined Zero Nine as permanent vocalist. After that, they were looking for another guitarist and keyboard player. Mara Mäntyniemi joined as the second guitarist and Matti "Iro" Murtola was found for the keys.

After we put out our first single in 1980 called "Down the Line" and released our debut album, Visions, Scenes and Dreams, that's when the band's career took off, so to speak.

THE START

Zero Nine rose to prominence in 1980 when you guys performed the song "Down the Line" on Finnish television on the music show Levyraati, winning that episode. Would you say that was the real starting point for the band's ever-growing success?

Kepa: Yes, I would say so. Performing on that show brought us a lot of attention. We had already played some shows here and there over the previous three years, mostly shows at schools and youth clubs in our original hometown Kuusamo, Oulu and its vicinity. But once we had performed on Levyraati and won that episode, the phone started ringing and many booking agencies and record companies were interested in us. All that led us to our first recording deal with a Finnish label Dig It (A Finnish rock/pop label founded by major record company Fazer).

NORTHERN IDENTITY

How would you describe the importance of Northern Finland to the band's identity at that time?

Kepa: Hmm, hard question. I would say back then Zero Nine really didn't have an identity, as we were not a known band, and the formation of our identity only started taking little baby steps as a heavy rock band from the North of Finland. But perhaps you should also ask some of the founding members of the band this question because I joined the band a bit later. I felt like a rookie compared to the other guys. Zero Nine was my first-ever band. Naturally, I had no identity of my own at that time and I kind of looked up to my band mates who¬, in my opinion, were more experienced musicians than I was back then, as they had played together for quite a while already.

Also, I never really thought of the band in the beginning as a band coming from the north, as it wasn't necessary for a band that had recently started. Plus, as we came from Kuusamo, which people in general consider the north of Finland, we really didn't think of it at all that we live in this region of Finland. There was really no reason for that. All this status as a heavy rock band from the north was stamped on us later, and we became an inspirational and influential band for many younger musicians in Finland.

We were asked in the beginning why we ended up making heavy rock specifically. We never calculated that we would do this or that type of stuff; we just did the kind of stuff that felt good to us, never really thinking of trying to fit some specific genre. Then again, a band like us, coming all the way from the north of Finland, can't really consider playing reggae music either, ha ha!! Our musical identity was built around all the bands that we were listening to as kids; Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Cream, etc.

Also, when it comes to our identity as a northern band, I think our advantage was that we were one of the first heavy rock bands in Finland, so apparently our northern location Kuusamo was also used to market Zero Nine, which is understandable in a marketing perspective. I remember that many people were amazed in Finland back then by the fact that from the northern city of Kuusamo came a band that sings in English and plays heavy rock and even doing so in a respectable way. In the early eighties in Finland, we had all these new wave punk rock bands from Ratsia to Pelle Miljoona who were all very popular. One could say it was a positive thing for us to differ musically from other Finnish bands back in those days, as we didn't sound like a mainstream band in Finland (yet).

Remembering the past is always difficult, the more time passes. But anyway, what memories do you have of your first gigs or the recording of your first album Visions, Scenes and Dreams as you were all still pretty young when you recorded that album?

Kepa: Yes, we were all young indeed when we recorded our debut album, full of untamed energy and sheer enthusiasm. We were all, of course, top on the world when we got our first record deal. I remember that our original goal was to record some demo songs first, hoping that it would be great if we got a single out some day. Well, things escalated fast for us, and eventually we found ourselves in the studio to record our debut album, which felt just unbelievable.

What about some early gig memories? I bet you have some left in your memory bank, right?

Kepa: Well, when I joined the band, like I said earlier, I felt like my other band mates had a lot of gig experience behind them already. For me, as the band's rookie, I was pretty nervous about our first gigs. I was young, stupid and inexperienced in doing gigs, so I kind of went with the flow with the other guys showing me how to do things when performing live. We were getting popular, the more we played around, and we got to play the bigger venues, which felt great, naturally.

Now, remembering those early days fronting the band, I think being young and inexperienced only helped me to do things back then. I just traveled along with the band and enjoyed the heck out of being on the road and playing gigs. When you are young, you really don't think too much about what is ahead of you or what you'll be doing in the next two, three, four or so years when being in a band, right? If we had just recorded one album with the band, I don't know if I would have been disappointed. I mean, when you are young, you don't think too much about what will happen in the future and such.

Who would have guessed we would be sitting in this hotel lobby 45 years after the formation of Zero Nine and have a gig ahead of us to be played at Ilovaari Festival very late tonight. That feels kind of crazy and unbelievable, giving me some genuine chills.

What also feels unbelievable is that Zero Nine never really broke up officially, even if the band has had its more silent periods over the years...

Kepa: No, no, no, we never broke up as a band like you just said. We have had our more silent periods, like just before COVID-19 hit the world, we didn't play any shows for three years. Those were also the times when we were all seriously pondering whether we should still play some shows or not. Then COVID-19 hit full force, shutting down whole societies, basically. Those times nearly put an end to the band. After COVID-19, when bands were allowed to play gigs again, our guitarist Timo received a random phone call from some fellow musician, asking to play a party in a bar. Timo gave me a call and asked me whether I was into doing that gig. I said, "let's just do it!"¬ and then called the rest of the guys, asking their opinion about doing gigs again after all these years. But there was one condition from my side; if I don't have to play two nights or weekends in a row, then I am into this gigging idea. They all agreed after some discussions, so everything worked out well in that respect.

It's great to play some random gigs here and there nowadays and our history seems to be strong, so we always get good crowds. It doesn't matter really where we play because people still seem to find their way to our gigs. Even during this ongoing year, we have played some really cool gigs for full houses, which makes us humble. There's been more demand for gigs than we can take, which is very nice, of course.

I guess it's sufficient to say that all kinds of nostalgia seem to sell and a band like Zero Nine gets what it deserves; fans from many generations attend your gigs these days...

Kepa: That's exactly right. Forty-five years is a long time for any band to be and still relevant. When we were traveling to this festival, we were talking about how much this world has changed in 45. In the beginning we had a 4-track recorder, then we got an 8-track recorder before we went into the real studio that had as many as 24 tracks. Nowadays even studio technology has changed so much, like Pro-Tools technology, etc. We have seen it all.

As for your original question, why end something nice when you can do it on your own terms? Back in the day, when we did way more gigs than we do these days, it sometimes felt like hard work traveling from one place to another to play for all those people. Nowadays, it doesn't feel that way at all because we don't play so often. We have a good time together and we can pull off a great show every time we are on stage.

We don't play any shows during wintertime because I don't want to leave Kuusamo for gigs. My fellow band mates know this rule and because of that, they start rehearsing together in February to ensure they will be ready for gigs in spring. Of course, we want to play a bunch of well-selected gigs every year, as long as we feel it's still fun to play together and we know we are capable of doing a great show. Normally we have done eight to ten shows per year. This year, we have accepted eight offers, which is not to say we have become picky or anything like that.

I remember reading that you said you love to go on stage and feel the energy and enthusiasm from your crowds and that's why you are doing this; to entertain people...

Kepa: Exactly. I love performing in front of supportive crowds. Another very pleasing aspect of being in a band is the songwriting thing, especially if you get some killer stuff created that feels good to you. That is a huge reward to me, personally. I bet many artists and bands feel that playing live is that thing that pleases a lot of us the most, though, and that is it for the members of our band, too.

It has been said that when you released your fourth full-length album, White Lines, you were being pushed to relocate abroad to either the UK or the US, where there would have been a better market for this style of music. What made you stay here on Finnish soil?

Kepa: Let's just say that we were finding our limits at that time. Some Finnish bands tried to break out abroad back then, some with a decent amount of success and some with less. We got suggestions to relocate Zero Nine from Kuusamo to Los Angeles or London so we could start to become a more internationally known band. But since we had already built a firm foundation in Finland, we didn't see much point in starting everything all over again. We were doing many shows in Finland in the eighties; we had a solid fanbase in Finland and even got paid a decent amount of money for playing around our home country.

Some of us already had family lives, like our now ex-bassist Elmo's (Harju) first daughter was born. It did not make sense for us to start the band somewhere else all over again, as we had worked so hard for Zero Nine in Finland for many years to gain the success level where we were at that time. Plus, I think we weren't so confident about our chances to hit it big somewhere else.

Building up from scratch again would have been quite a huge mountain to climb...

Kepa: Indeed. It surely would have demanded lots of hard work and we were not ready for that.

TOURING WITH AC/DC IN 1996

When your seventh full-length studio album, Freakshow, was released in 1996, you toured the Nordic countries as AC/DC's warm-up act. What kind of memories does that tour leave in your mind?

Kepa: It's a funny story of how we got to open for AC/DC on that tour in 1996. I remember that when we first heard about the possibility, we had a gig at some club in Jyväskylä, Finland. Our friend, actually manager at that time, Tumppi Haaranen, took care of many things for Zero Nine on many levels. He got a call at the club where we played the gig that night suggesting a great opportunity to join the Scandinavian tour to support AC/DC for five dates. Hearing about this absolutely fantastic opportunity dropped our jaws on the floor, as we were totally amazed by this chance to share the stage a band as big as AC/DC was at that time (and still is for that matter). During the Scandinavian tour, we were also asked if we wanted to do one more gig with them but this time in Kiel, Germany. We even got a little better pay for doing that festival show when we told them we didn't have any financial resources to do it. So, they paid us enough and we shared the stage with AC/DC for the sixth time. Nowadays, if you are just a warm-up band, you have to pay the headliner.

All in all, it was a very cool experience for us, playing with a band of that size and then watching them straight from the stage when they were performing and playing all those classic hit songs. We were all in heaven seeing them there with a very supportive crowd in front of them, of course. I dare to claim that being a warm-up act for a band like AC/DC at that time would have been a huge thing for any band, no doubt. AC/DC had just finished their tour in the States prior to this festival show, and we heard that there was this support act for AC/DC, in which one of the members was a cousin of one AC/DC member. Unfortunately, this band had issues at almost every gig on that tour. We were a bit nervous at the first show. Happily, nothing bad happened and all our shows got some good reactions from the audience. In Copenhagen, Denmark, we did one of our very best shows ever. But in Kiel, Germany, we had 200 empty beer cans thrown at us during our first two songs, but it only added more fuel to the Zero Nine machine and charged us to perform even more intensely than ever. After a few songs, they also started digging us by raising their fists high in the air.

But yeah, doing gigs with AC/DC was a real success for us, and it was sort of an ultimate experience for Zero Nine. A dream-come-true tour for any band out there to play with those Australian rock giants.

I have to mention that we had a pretty long recording break after the Voodoo You album was released in 1988. Our seventh studio album, Freakshow, came out in 1996, eight years later, so we were lucky that, after that album was released, we got this fantastic opportunity to open up for AC/DC. We were back in business in a big way.

Did you get to know any of the members in AC/DC and what did you talk about with them, if anything at all?

Kepa: We were introduced to each other, and they were told where we came from but that's about it. Also, a funny story is that our then-bassist Elmo was walking up the stairs at the festival area with some fellow who said, "you guys sound and look great on stage and have a great band." Later on, we found out that "fellow" was none other than AC/DC vocalist Brian Johnson. Elmo didn't recognize him when he stopped in those stairs for a brief moment to chat. He just thanked him for his kind compliments and wished him a nice day, he he!

Zero Nine is considered one of the first Finnish heavy rock bands to gain international attention. What was that phase like back then?

Kepa: Well, even if we did get our toes on international ground a little bit, I wouldn't say Zero Nine ever became any international success, the way bands like Nightwish or Amorphis have done over the years. Even if we had all the tools available to become such¬, we never really cared for the huge international success. For a band like us, it was enough to support big names from AC/DC to Alice Cooper and different media also wrote about these things because it was a bit of unheard at that time that a Finnish band got to open up for such big names.

For me, being a member of this band, it's also a bit hard to explain why we received so much success with so little effort. I believe it has a lot to do with the right band chemistry, that each of us in the band has been blessed to know each other for such a long time, doing music together what we all like doing without any pressure to set goals on some level of success. No, we have never been such a goal-oriented band. Nowadays every successful band needs some extra fire power behind them from other people who can make things happen for their bands (promoters, PR people, etc.), but at that time Zero Nine had basically none of that and everything just happened for us as if Zero Nine was more a hobby band to us than anything else. I think we just were at the right place at the right time, which allowed us to do things on our own terms, so to speak.

So, you guys basically went with the flow and some great things happened around you...

Kepa: Exactly. I enormously respect all musicians who can make this their living, paying their bills paid by doing music. You never know, even the best-sounding band in the whole could be playing in some garage right now and no one knows about them. What I am trying to say here is no matter how good you are, you also have to have some luck with you in order to reach some level of success these days. Being at the right place at the right time definitely helps you with some of those goals. I don't want to say more. It's just that there needs to be some sort of luck on your side, besides being talented and all that, otherwise your road will be long and rocky. Of course, it doesn't lead anywhere if your band ultimately sounds shitty; then luck doesn't help in this rough business.

Yes. You need to have professional and experienced people behind you; a professional gig booking agency to get you to play in the right places, the right merchandise company to ensure you always have stuff to sell at gigs, etc. etc. The list is endless...

Kepa: Yes, of course, of course! Today, it has an even bigger meaning to have the right people working behind you as there are a countless number of bands out there who are all fighting for their own little space under the brightest lights. In the early '80s, there were Finnish heavy rock/metal bands like Sarcofagus, Riff Raff, Tarot and so on, who were all very talented and had all the potential for success, but I think they didn't hit the right spot like we did with Zero Nine, not the same way. For example, Tarot started getting more attention only when Marco Hietala joined Nightwish.

How did the Finnish music scene treat heavy rock bands in the early years of your career? I mean, heavy rock as a genre really wasn't a popular musical phenomenon in the eighties in Finland...

Kepa: No, it wasn't. When we started with Zero Nine, the prevailing Finnish music scene was all about punk rock bands and stuff. I have to say that we got along with all the punk rockers at that time and we played at happenings where there were also punk bands on the same bill. I think our loud heavy rock also appealed to punks quite a bit back in those days. We never ran into trouble with them. In the very same breath, I also have to say there are less dickheads among musicians than in normal life, something my later years have taught me about "normal life," ha ha!

I guess I have been lucky to not know that many dickheads among musicians over the decades.

YOUR SWEETEST BABY

Nice to hear that. Zero Nine has recorded nine studio albums so I need to ask you which of your albums or songs is the most meaningful to you personally and why?

Kepa: Well, your debut album is always your first album. It feels like the first Stanley Cup victory, which is said to be the sweetest. However, from a vocalist perspective, I think I was already a good singer on the White Lines album and on the Intrigue album, I became a tad better, in my opinion. Our latest studio album, Freakshow, however, is the one I dig most out of all our albums because it's got my best vocal performance of all, in my sincere opinion. It's my opinion and doesn't necessarily represent my band mates' opinions.

What's the importance of Freakshow to me personally? That album shows me that I have developed over the years as a vocalist.

As a quick side question, did you train your voice over the years or did your voice just develop naturally the more you used it?

Kepa: No, never. I think my voice got better and better when I joined Zero Nine rehearsals and tried different ways to find a fitting vocal line for our songs. But that's about it as far as my "vocal lessons" are concerned.

I bet fans have been asking when they expect the tenth Zero Nine album for their listening pleasure and those inquiries can be considered fair because it's been six long years since the IX album came out. Do you have any news for them?

Kepa: Well, we do have a lot of raw song material, but it feels like there will be a huge mountain to climb to get a full studio album done. I mean, if we were younger and had all the skills to work with computers and stuff, recording songs on our own, we would have recorded that tenth Zero Nine album by now. For us old-timers, even a smart phone seems to be the highest technology, and we can understand only standard features on it, so you can figure out that we simply aren't capable of working that way with the next Zero Nine album. It would demand quite a lot of time from each of us to gather and start putting our shit together so that the next album could even be possible. We know ourselves by experience that we are very slow working in the studio. The other thing is that studio time costs a lot of money, but the scariest part is the huge amount of work that needs to be done for our next album. It won't come easy, that's for sure.

But never say never. We keep our spirits and ideas open, so you never know what will happen in the future. Time will tell...

It will come, if it's meant to come...

Kepa: Yes, exactly. All this reminds me if my memory serves me, it's probably one of the guys from Twisted Sister who once said in one interview, "We are doomed to play our old songs only. Nobody is interested in our new songs...". The same can be applied to Zero Nine, in some sense.

THE ULTIMATE FRIENDSHIP

As you guys in Zero Nine have known each other for many decades and the band lineup has stayed almost the same for all these years, what is it about the band's chemistry that has kept you guys together since the very beginning?

Kepa: We have been more than just band members to each other; we are friends and share time with each other outside of Zero Nine. We have always had a nice time together and felt good about each other being in the band. If not for that, Zero Nine would hardly exist to be honest with you. We have never had a deep crisis between band members or anything like that. One helpful thing is that all of us have had projects outside of Zero Nine. I have done my solo album, our guitarist Mara has done his solo album, and everyone has played in some project bands, etc. I feel like when we are together in Zero Nine, we all feel like the world is ours. We make each other better musicians. Why change a working tire on the vehicle if it's not broken? With this lineup, we have experienced so much over these many years as a unit, teaching each of us how to be better people so to speak. I guess it would be very hard to replace one of us because of the very long friendships we've built, making us a truly unique team. We can understand each other's needs and that's very important. Zero Nine was given birth by friends. We didn't have to put ads in music magazines because everyone one of us was from the core group of close friends back in the day with whom we had all kind of things going on. In that sense, we are lucky. We changed only our bassist once when Elmo left the band, partly due to a lack of gigs. As we didn't do many gigs at one time, and he didn't feel like rehearsing with his bass that much either. Our current bassist, Jarski Jaakkola, who replaced Elmo, had worked as a roadie for us since autumn 1985, sometimes even singing backing vocals for us behind the curtains a bit later on. Jarski was also one of our closest friends, so it was easy for the rest of us to get him to play bass in the band when Elmo handed these duties to him. If I can recall those times right, I believe Elmo even told Jarski that as he's such a good bassist, he should take over the bass duties from him. Elmo was kind of tired of playing bass anyway, so it was good Jarski was there then and started playing bass in Zero Nine after Elmo left. Jarski has been joking to us that he's not only bassist but bassist/roadie instead, he he!

How would you say your audience has changed over the years, keeping in mind that some people have been following the band's comings and goings since the very beginning.

Kepa: Happily, many new people have found us over the years, which feels fantastic, of course. It's always great to see old faces in the crowd, people who have been following us from one gig to another since the very beginning. I've been in some pretty awkward situations because people tend to get older¬ and when you see familiar faces but don't really recognize these people, it's because we have all changed physically over the years, right? Also, it's cool to see their kids at the same gigs, which tells us those kids have been born into the right families, ha ha!!

I am also delighted that there's a whole new generation of younger people who have found us and come to our shows. Apparently, they have become familiar with our stuff via the internet, on YouTube, Spotify and such. Finding music is so much easier nowadays because everything seems to be digitally available. Back in the day when I was a kid, I need to travel from Kuusamo to Oulu if I wanted to buy music from a record store. Or I listened to music on the radio if I wanted to find some cool music.

PASSION FOR PERFORMING LIVE

This next question is a bit more personal. What keeps your passion for music alive? Has it stayed the same compared to 30 or 40 years ago?

Kepa: Nope, it hasn't changed at all. It would sound funny if someone stayed in the music business for 45 years and didn't have that passion. Although I have never considered myself much of a musician, I think I have always been the guy who ended up singing in a band with his close friends. I guess it's even a bit of an exaggeration to say I am a very passionate person no matter what I do. So, in other words, I don't know how much passion I have or it's just that I haven't realized yet how passionately actually I've been involved with the doings of the band, ha ha!!

I bet the euphoria you get during a gig as well as after a good performance makes you feel very passionate about this band, to the point when you could say to yourself, "Never stop running...", just like one of your song titles.

Kepa: Yes, that's so true. Like you said earlier, I do feel very passionate when I am on stage in front of people. It's the best thing you can experience on stage, and not anywhere else. Perhaps in my case the word "passionate" doesn't describe it well enough for me. I'd say I am a more enthusiastic than passionate while performing on stage. When I perform on stage, it feels like some nice yet odd chemical is pumping through my brain and body that causes a lot of pleasure. It's hard to put it into the right words. It's something that puts me into some sort of state of euphoria that I cannot experience anywhere else.

I am now thinking if I still consider myself a passionate guy after all? Ha ha! I do know that I am in a very different world when I am on stage; full of sheer enthusiasm and feeling great when I can give 100% to our audience. But yeah, when we did a huge number of gigs back in the day, rest assured they all weren't as great as some others were. I think no band can pull off a 100% perfect gig every single night. But anyway, back to your question, in my opinion performing for the crowd is the best thing for me that I can think of when being in the band.

Fair enough. If we talk about the future, you said earlier that Zero Nine won't do any gigs when it's wintertime. What about next year? Have you already booked some gigs and what kind of plans do you have regarding the band?

Kepa: Well, the last gig that's been scheduled for us, for the time being at least, will be a show that will happen at the Tavastia Club in Helsinki, Finland, on August 8th. After that, we will probably take a break for 2-3 months to think about our next steps. Most likely, we'll hit the road again in spring 2026, waiting for those phone calls for gigs, and do some of them again if the offers are decent.

I am a little bit against traveling too far from my home for gigs because they always take a lot of time to get everything sorted out for me. For example, when we played in Hämeenlinna, Finland, this May, together with Peer Günt, it took three days and three nights to do the whole trip for me: same for the gig at the Tavastia Club in Helsinki. It's not just pack your things and go to a gig. It's not nearly as simple as that. Don't get me wrong, but playing in some cities in the southern part of Finland isn't on our banned list at all; on the contrary we very much like playing everywhere in Finland but living in Kuusamo makes it way more demanding for me. If I lived a bit closer, like in Oulu, it'd be just a one-day trip to Helsinki and back to Oulu. Unfortunately, that's not the case.

You also have a book about Zero Nine in the making. Would you be willing to tell us something about that, perhaps?

Kepa: Sure. Tero Karjalainen, who's also originally from Kuusamo and is a professional media journalist working for bigger media outlets like Iltasanomat, etc., called us one day and asked whether we would be interested in this book project. We said, "yes."

We have been contacted about similar book projects before, many times actually, and we even did some interviews for one book project a long time ago but, unfortunately, that project was never finished. When we got to know this guy from Kuusamo, the original home of Zero Nine, it encouraged us to continue with this project. It was good to have him to do this book with us, as he obviously understands the true spirit of Kuusamo better than some random journalist from some southern Finnish city. Zero Nine has grown from different ground than many other bands coming from other parts of Finland. Kuusamo isn't a big city, just like Helsinki or Tampere. In my opinion Tero, who's originally from Kuusamo, can probably write Zero Nine's story the way we want it to be told. Even if he's moved away from Kuusamo and already probably lived half of his life in the southern part of Finland because of his job and all that, I think Tero knows the spirit of Kuusamo very well; it's in his blood because he's from here.

ZERO NINE'S HISTORY TO BE PUBLISHED IN BOOK

How far along are you with that book?

Kepa: Well, as absurd as it may sound, we have reached the year 1982 in our history so far. Sounds pretty hopeless, doesn't it? I think our story will be mostly concentrated on the period from the very beginning up to 1996 but, of course, the book will naturally deal with the times from 1996 up to this very day as well.

But yeah, we are still in the very early stages with that book. If I remember correctly, the deadline to finish the book is somewhere before May Day 2026, and the book release will happen in autumn during the same year. I must say it's way easier to remember what happened in Zero Nine in the '90s than in the '80s. It's really hard to recall those very early days of the band. I must be honest with you: when we are moving on from 1982, towards the so-called "golden times" of Zero Nine, it's still very hard for me to remember what happened in the band; where on earth we were doing gigs, etc. It truly helps to remember things when all of us gather together and form a collective idea of those hazy days of the band's comings and goings. There are many things about our past times that I cannot remember at all. It's great that when we talk together about the past of Zero Nine, there's always some of us who have a detailed piece of memory of this or that and then someone remembers even more about those things that happened in the past, which eventually leads us toward the right direction with all of our recollections.

The '80s was a great time for Zero Nine, and even if a lot of great things happened around the band, some of those memories have already vanished into a deep oblivion, unfortunately. But no worries there as we are certainly trying to dig up as many memories from our past as we can.

I would like to mention that many times when people talk about Zero Nine, they automatically remember us as a band that opened up for bigger bands like Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne and so on. However, they should remember that those warm-up gigs are just a fraction of all our gigs that we have done over five decades. We have played 1000+ gigs during our whole career and, honestly, our best concerts have happened in smaller towns here in Finland, but still at relatively big venues that hold 2000+ people or something like that. In the '80s, we played a lot of dance halls that had big capacities; nowadays it's all about clubs where bands play, but in the eighties, venues were bigger; way bigger than what you can find from the club scene in Finland these days. For example, the Ostrobothnia area in Finland may have had five bigger venues within a 100km radius that held a capacity of 2000+ people and that's a lot. It was in those kinds of places we built our fanbase back then. Naturally we feel blessed that we also got to open up for all those bigger names but the groundwork for our success was all done in smaller towns around Finland. It was all those gigs that we headlined ourselves where the groundwork was done and not in our warm-up shows for more established names in the heavy rock scene.

How do you see Zero Nine's future on the gig front? Do you believe you are able to do one-off shows within the next two or three years or so...?

Kepa: Tough question. I remember one article somewhere where some journalist wrote about us, saying "Zero Nine can pull off fantastic shows, even in this age and time, so I cannot see any reason why they should stop now but do more gigs for the next couple of years or so..." It makes me humble to read something like that, but, unfortunately, we cannot make any promises as to how long Zero Nine can go on gigging-wise. We take things slowly; one step at a time to see whether the passion for playing around is still in us. As I mentioned to you a bit earlier, we have never been such a goal-orientated, calculating band; hence it would feel a bit weird for us¬ after 45 years, to change our ways of thinking about what we will do within the next couple of years or so. Nope, we won't change our ways; we do what we feel like doing, without putting too much pressure on our shoulders regarding planning for our doings in the future, we are just too old for that. As long as we all feel it's worth keeping this band alive, we will be gigging for sure. How long, nobody knows that for sure.

If you could organize a dream farewell gig for Zero Nine, what would it be like and where would it be held? Would it happen in your hometown Kuusamo, where Zero Nine has its roots?

Kepa: Uh, I have no idea what it would be like. I have never even thought about it. But it would sometimes be cool to play some songs off the White Lines, Intrigue and Voodoo You albums, especially the latter album, on which we had T.T. Oksala (RIP) as our producer. Back then, we had decent recording budgets to do things like hire guest vocalists to sing on our records, like Kim Lönnholm and Edu Kettunen (both Broadcast fames), etc., some of the greatest Finnish rock voices at that time. However, as for your question, probably it would be really nice to get some of those musicians back for that one last gig; the musicians who have been on some of our records as guests, like Salla, for example, who played the violin on the Intrigue album and vocalist Annika Wiklund, who has had a long solo career of her own and not to forget Kim Lönnholm either, among other great guest vocalists that we have worked with.

Yeah, that would be something worth thinking about; having all the songs off those three albums well rehearsed for that one last Zero Nine gig; with some of the guest musicians we have worked with previously. They are all about the same age as we are. It would be so cool to get them to perform in our final set, and especially those guest vocalists would also ease up my duties on stage because I wouldn't have to sing all the time, he he!

PEOPLE ARE TOUCHED BY MUSIC

That would be something truly special indeed. How would you like the band's fans to remember Zero Nine when the band has been laid down to its icy grave for good?

Kepa: Hmm... I would say it would be heart-warming when our fans remember us from those concerts that we have done where there's something truly magical in the air and everyone has a great feeling. Some people have even met each other at our gigs for the first time, then got married and started a family. I know some people have gotten a lot of energy from our gigs, and some have felt great comfort and such when they have seen us performing on stage. When you hear these types of things from your fans, it makes you feel humble and grateful for being able to affect people's lives through your music. Music of bands and artists in general can have healing powers, and some people tend to get very powerful experiences through bands' music. Even if I don't consider myself an emotional person, sometimes I get truly touched when I see a handful of people in our crowd who are crying because they get moved by some of our songs. For me personally, it's always a rewarding thing to touch people's hearts with our music, which is like a larger-than-life experience for them, I guess. When we played one of our power ballad songs, "Intrigue," at our concerts a couple of years ago—people cried in the audience. Now, when we have replaced that song with "Ange"" in our setlist—another ballad song of ours, people are crying again, ha ha!

OK, that's it. It was a long chat, and I sincerely want to thank you, Kepa, for taking your time and sitting down with me and last but not least I'd like to wish you all the best for tonight's gig, too.

Kepa: Thank you very much. It was pleasant to talk to you.